Comment by mitchs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mitchs | Hacker News Reader

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> She has her own critics now: Several leading scholars have found fault with Ms. Khan’s proposals to revive and expand antitrust, and some have tried to dismiss her paper with the mocking label “Hipster Antitrust.” Unwilling or perhaps unable to accept that a woman wrote a breakthrough legal text, they keep talking about bearded dudes.

So we are just presuming sexism? OK David Streitfeld, I immediately trust you and believe that all critics of her paper are evil dudes who just hate women. Oh look, we are moving on from that point immediately to dive into her back story and not backing it up with anything. Guess I'll just have to take your word for it that her critics disagreed with her instead of her work.

Well, three quarters of the way through the article we got our answer.

> The April issue of the journal Antitrust Chronicle, edited by Mr. Medvedovsky, features a drawing of a bearded man on the cover right above the words “Hipster Antitrust.” In the middle of an ... there’s a photograph of a bearded man taking a selfie next to the chapter heading “Battle of the Beards.” It is perhaps relevant that only one of the 12 authors or experts in the issue is female. > The Hipster issue was sponsored by Facebook, another sign that Big Tech is striving to shape the monopoly-law debate. The company declined to comment.

Interesting. I'm annoyed that the article moved on well enough for me to come post a comment on the comment that stuck out like a sore thumb.

That explains the beard but what about the accusation of sexism?

>It is perhaps relevant that only one of the 12 authors or experts in the issue is female.

Hopefully that's not all that was said in support of it.

It must be sexism because 11/12 authors were male. Obviously. If you disagree, you are sexist.

Also, my cat is sexist because she had five kittens and all five are male.

I don’t like discounting ideas because of the flaws of their originators, but I’m likely going to ignore all articles that make such spurious claims without evidence.

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